Rohingya hatred spread on Facebook

Those who have managed to escape Burma said they have seen “violence of an extremely cruel nature”JACK HILL/THE TIMES

Facebook has become a “beast” used to incite hatred and violence against Rohingya Muslims in Burma, two United Nations human rights experts have said.

Yanghee Lee, the UN’s chief monitor on Burma, said that the social media site’s near monopoly allowed it to be used to persecute Rohingya, 700,000 of whom have been forced out in the past seven months.

“Everything is done through Facebook in Myanmar,” Ms Lee told the UN human rights council in Geneva. “We know that the ultranationalist Buddhists . . . are really inciting a lot of violence and a lot of hatred. Facebook has turned into a beast, and not what it originally intended.”